What a wonder it is
to encounter this
almost hopeless mercy
on the wings of a blue heron,
here, where her cousins are nesting
in a Norfolk pine planted ages ago
for its use as a mast when our world
was still powered by wind,
when the ways things are threaded
together was more about the trees
you left on other shores
and less about the bundles of light
now beaming from this living room
to yours.

Still, we're just planting seeds
as an act of faith that there will be
more.

That we think this more will be
others like us arriving here
and then leaving on the same winds
is an act of small imagination.

The herons who have woven
this strange tree into a home
help illustrate the unexpected mercies
that answer real faith.